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I bumped into someone I went to school with a few weeks back, and after a rapid catch-up, we both said something to the effect of “you haven’t changed a bit.” Whereupon I joked, “well, that’s what we pay the aesthetician for, right?” She looked shocked. Well, not shocked exactly because her eyebrows didn’t move, but as shocked as anyone can look when the top half of their face is paralysed.

“You’ve never had Botox ?” I asked, suspiciously. Maybe that was too personal, but I couldn’t help it. I was staring at the flawless forehead of a 42-year-old woman who had quite clearly had Botox.



Flustered, she swore she had not. She just had a good skincare routine and drank a lot of water. I tried to raise my eyebrow at her, but she wouldn’t admit to it.

I realised I was on dangerous ground, so we said our goodbyes, and I walked away feeling a bit guilty for putting her on the spot like that. I do have a habit of oversharing personal information. If you have read my other columns , you may have arrived at a similar conclusion.

So I accept that not everyone is as open about personal things as I am, but I am always genuinely baffled by the culture of silence and shame that still exists around cosmetic surgery and “tweakments”: Botox, fillers, microneedling, fat transfer – the list goes on. Why should anyone feel embarrassed by what they have done to look as good as they do? There seems to be an unspoken sliding scale of beauty treatments that people will adm.

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